bar, union, bookbinder fan club

went to fairfax’s wedding last night (“As for dress for the wedding, we have suggested Yippee Ki Ya attire”) and was super anxious about it (class issues, obligatory invite, michael ovitz in attendance), but i accidentally got kind of borracha and had a total blast. erin shirreff was in town for the wedding, an artist we worked with back in 2010, and it’s so funny, i have lots of friends but sometimes there are just friends that you straight up jam with. here are photos of us drunk jamming together last night. also the band played “comfortably numb,” an amazing choice for a wedding reception.

nothing much to report, have been loko bananas working on the steve earle show last sunday, where the most vibrant double rainbow of all time appeared during the show. here is the proof. (photos by lesley brown.)

it doesn’t look real or it looks photoshopped and this is actually how it was.

We are also attempting fruitlessly to purchase a home to live in. Even here in this sleepy burg many hours away from anything resembling a cultural center, the market has, if you will, “popped off.” We made a very competitive offer on a very cool house and were not even dignified with a counter-offer; the house sold immediately for over the asking price. What is this, Portland? What a bunch of garbage. I just want a place where my snoopy can roll in the dirt and I won’t be sucked dry by landlords any longer. But wherever you go, if it’s even a halfway decent place to live, there will be the gnarled hand of the third-home-owner or the displaced tech bro or the New York writer who wants a quaint little country retreat and is willing to pay $450,000 for it even though it needs a new floor.

EVEN READING THIS GIVES ME A PIT IN MY SWEET LITTLE STOMACH AS IT IS THE SAD REAL TRUTH OF MARFA AND PERHAPS I HAVE MADE THIS THE REALITY BY WORKING AT A PLACE THAT MAKES FAUX MAGICAL WEEKENDS FOR RICH PEOPLE WHO FALL IN LOVE WITH THE PLACE AND HAVE THEREFORE PRICED MYSELF OUT OF EVEN HOVEL OWNERSHIP.

also how did i get so in debt this year? i think i blame: surgeries, horrible dentists, buying too many gifts, and perhaps going bananas with spending right before my surgery as a reward/in effort to make surgery seem “fun” (actually a good strategy, recommend).

also new plan for combating tooth problems: drinking whole milk, and plenty of it.

People who didn’t live pre-Internet can’t grasp how devoid of ideas life in my hometown was. The only bookstores sold Bibles the size of coffee tables and dashboard Virgin Marys that glowed in the dark. I stopped in the middle of the SAT to memorize a poem, because I thought, This is a great work of art and I’ll never see it again.

I’m a single guy who makes good money and moved here from out of state to take a cheap apartment in a traditionally Polish neighborhood, so I feel pretty bad even having this conversation, because I’m a big part of the problem. I’m not anywhere near a working-class family being forced to commute to minimum-wage jobs in Manhattan from an apartment farther and farther away because they keep getting priced out. (Note to someone: The next book of essays about people leaving New York should be written by poor people forced to leave instead of those of us who did it for quarter-life-crisis or career or significant-other reasons). That being said, where people from our backgrounds are concerned, I don’t think New York’s transformation is such a bad thing. I actually find something compelling about the prospect of the world’s weirdos and artists and everyone else looking elsewhere for their utopia. I hope I do leave here someday. And if I have grandkids, I hope they say to me, “We can’t believe you ever thought New York City was cool,” while pushing my wheelchair through their anarchist arts commune in Orlando.

think about this a lot, since i live in a manhattan-ish utopia-ish kinda place, and i can’t always put my finger on why this place is so special (besides the obvious reasons of small town living/big city culture/incredible stars, incredible sunsets). but really, why couldn’t a random city somewhere else be heavenly? if you had the space and liked the scenery and could find the people…it probably could be. it’s almost more exciting to carve your niche, than to live in a niche.

GIRL YAS I AM BUGGIN. best out of the blue / rightest-on-est-text of 2015.

also today i have EXCLUSIVELY eaten carbs (a muffin; leftover spaghetti; lentil pita chips) — flippin the carb story this year. also i just want to raise a flag for bachelor eating, eating toast on a paper towel, never using plates, never doing dishes.